Thanks to a gift from Shire Pharmaceuticals, Play Like a Champion Today®(PLC) will develop educational materials to assist coaches to work with children with a range of learning disabilities, pervasive developmental disorders, such as Asperger's Syndrome, and health problems, such as asthma. Read More

A new University of Notre Dame partnership with the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) will help to bring STEM college-level courses to more students in secondary schools across Indiana.

Funding from the U.S. Department of Education, announced last week, cleared the way for NMSI to make a $7 million grant to implement additional College Board’s Advanced Placement math, science, and English courses in Indiana through a program administered by Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI). Read More

Reading for Life, an innovative literature-based mentoring program that provides an alternative to prosecution for low-risk juvenile offenders, was recently awarded County funding to sustain its operation in St. Joseph County, Indiana. With the unanimous approval of the County Council and Commissioners, Judge Peter J. Nemeth of the St. Joseph Probate Court has appropriated basic funding for Reading for Life for 2012. Read More

The University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) today launched the "ACE Readers" program, a state-of-the-art childhood literacy program designed to combat the achievement gap that plagues at-risk communities. The program will be implemented in the Notre Dame ACE Academy (NDAA) schools in Tucson, Ariz., and was made possible by a $118,000 grant from TargetRead More

Bill Carbonaro has been elected chair of the Sociology of Education section of the American Sociological Association. The section chair is res

ponsible for organizing all of the events for the Annual Meeting, as well as any administrative work that needs attention during the year. Bill is currently the chair-elect of the section, and his term will begin in August of 2012 after the Annual Meetings in Denver. He will serve as section chair in 2012-13, culminating with the 2013 meetings in New York City. Read More

The ND Forum panel discussion, "The Conversation: Developing the Schools Our Children Deserve," took place Sept. 28. Leading voices in K-12 education offered prescriptions for reforming K-12 schools, as The ObserverRead More

A commitment to strengthen Catholic primary and secondary education prompted celebrations of joy and hope at the University of Notre Dame on Sept. 16-17 with the dedication of a new home for the Alliance for Catholic EducationRead More

The Mighty Macs, a new movie that celebrates the intersection of values and sports, will be presented in a “sneak peek” on Thursday, Sept. 15, at the Browning Cinema in Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts. The screening is accompanied by a panel discussion that will include Notre Dame Women’s Basketball Head Coach Muffett McGraw. The event, presented by the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, is co-sponsored by the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) and its Play Like a Champion Today ® program. Read More

Megan Andrew and Amy Langenkamp have joined the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO), the Institute for Educational Initiatives, and the Department of Sociology as Assistant Professors.

In particular, Langenkamp has received the O’Shaughnessy Assistant Professor Chair of Education. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University from 2008 to 2011. Read More

August 18, 2011 •
William Schmitt

The Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) and the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) have a new home, located at the heart of the Notre Dame campus. A series of events on Sept. 16-17, 2011, will welcome visitors for the building’s dedication and associated celebrations. Read More

The Center for Research in Educational Opportunity (CREO) at the University of Notre Dame and its director Dr. Mark Berends congratulate assistant director Bill Carbonaro, who was awarded the University’s 2011 award for the outstanding Director of Graduate Studies.

Carbonaro is the first recipient of this new award, the Notre Dame DGS of the Year. He was honored for his excellent work as director of graduate students for the Department of Sociology.Read More

Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents, has named Stuart Greene, an Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) Fellow at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Education, Schooling, and Society (ESS) program, one of the 2011 recipients of the Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award. Read More

“School Choice and School Improvement,” the new book co-edited by IEI Fellow and sociologist Mark Berends, has been reviewed by a leading education journalist in The Washington Post.“It is refreshing to find a new book presenting some of the most recent findings, as disturbing as they might be to my favorite biases,” wrote Jay Matthews in his May 31 review. The article, Class StruggleRead More

A tradition called the “ACE Summer” has just begun for the eighteenth time, again embodying the University of Notre Dame’s commitment to sustain, strengthen, and transform Catholic K-12 education.

On Friday, May 27, Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) welcomed its new class of 90 young men and women eager to serve as teachers in under-resourced Catholic schools around the country. They will share in a distinctive, two-year experience that combines professional formation, community, and spirituality, bringing participants to Notre Dame for two consecutive summers and sending them forth to teach in some 30 cities during two full school years. Read More

Opportunities to make a difference in K-12 education will abound this summer as the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) sponsors conferences covering a range of interests and initiatives.

ACE conferences coming up in the next couple of months on the Notre Dame campus will once again be important focal points for learning about—and responding to—the challenge of sustaining and strengthening K-12 Catholic schools nationwide. Registration is still open for these distinctive gatherings, which are conducted by units of ACERead More

Does school choice work as a strategy to improve schools and help students learn? A new book co-edited by Mark Berends, a Fellow in the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), considers that question. Titled School Choice and School Improvement, the book from Harvard Education PressRead More

Nicole McNeil, a Notre Dame psychology professor and fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), has been awarded two federal grants for her research into children’s ability to understand key mathematical concepts….

Does school choice work as a strategy to improve schools and help students learn? A new book co-edited by Mark Berends, a Fellow in the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), considers that question. Titled School Choice and School Improvement, the book from Harvard Education PressRead More

Two leading scholars studying the intersection of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity will offer a pair of talks on Wednesday, March 23, as part of the Henkels Lecture Series, hosted by Notre Dame’s Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO).

The scholars of education, Patricia Gándara and Gary Orfield, are co-directors of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, an initiative at UCLARead More

Charter schools are at the center of a growing national discussion about education reform. Daniel Lapsley, chair of Notre Dame’s psychology department and a fellow of the University’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), will offer an introduction to this important subject in a lecture on March 9 at 7:30 pm in the auditorium of Geddes Hall.Read More

A mentor with the Reading for Life program supported by Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) has received a 2011 Inspire Award from the statewide organization College Mentors for Kids. Bekki Fahrer, of Union, Michigan, was honored for the program that serves first-time offenders under the purview of the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center.Read More

A new student-produced video features three seniors’ praises for the minor in Education, Schooling, and Society (ESS). Consider the minor yourself.
Meaghan Crowley, Gabby Tate, and Maggie Thomas, all Class of 2011, talk about their experiences in the ESS interdisciplinary minor. The video footage was edited by another ESS minor , senior Emily Crosby.

Special thanks to ESS program associate director Nancy McAdams. Read More

The Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame has entered a collaboration aimed at helping public and parochial school students in the campus’s neighboring communities to improve their writing skills. See the Jan. 27 edition of The ObserverRead More

The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) and Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) are making major contributions to support Haiti’s recovery from the earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010. One initiative to rebuild educational infrastructure is placing shovels in the ground this week. Read More